“Who gets the change?" the clerk asked. "You or...your fella?" Oh, he's not my boyfriend," I said. "He's my mother.” — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
“It just wasn't for me, and anyway, those people were a lot more far gone than I was. More in my father's… — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
“I wonder what my baby is thinking at this moment," he called, rubbing his stomach with his hands. What I was thinking… — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
“Your mother mentioned she had a little girl. These are for you, sweetheart. Just a little something, heh heh." He handed me… — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
“When I asked my parents how the baby got inside Ma, they both laughed, and then Daddy told me they had made… — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
“As my father talked, tears dripped down the side of his face like candle wax. The sight shocked me; until that moment,… — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
“Domenico!” Father Guglielmo said. “I remind you again that the late monsignor’s sins and his salvation are between God and him. Your… — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
“Eventually, I reached the other side of the chasm and understood the differences between the two men. I no longer hated Daddy:… — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
“... you know what was really messing me up when I got down there to Pittsburgh? Was how young he seemed. He… — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
“Sometimes we want something to be true so badly that we convince ourselves that it is true.” — Wally Lamb Copy Share
I like to write first-person because I like to become the character I'm writing. — Wally Lamb Copy Share
But I think this: that whatever prices I've paid, whatever sorrows I shoulder, well, I have blessings, too. Not just my family now, but… — Wally Lamb Copy Share
“And in taking on the subject of themselves-making themselves vulnerable to the unseen reader-they have exchanged powerlessness for for the power that comes with… — Wally Lamb Copy Share
“People had always amazed him, he began. But they amazed him more since the sickness. For as long as the two of them had… — Wally Lamb Copy Share
“So I got my stuff and the girl at the register puts these other things in my bag, too. Little free samples: gum and… — Wally Lamb Copy Share
What if I don’t like adventure? Then cultivate a taste for it. Take a chance. That’s how you grow. — Wally Lamb Copy Share
“Guess what?' I said. 'I have a psychic.' His head tilted questioningly, birdlike. A sidekick?” — Wally Lamb Copy Share
Life is a whoopee cushion, a chair pulled away just as you were taking a seat. — Wally Lamb Copy Share
“What I remembered about those seesaw rides was the way Thomas would get mad at me, midride, and evacuate. Send me crashing back down… — Wally Lamb Copy Share
“I didn't respond to him. Couldn't speak at all. Couldn't look at his self-mutilation--not even the clean, bandaged version of it. Instead, I looked… — Wally Lamb Copy Share
I write to find out what the story means to me, that is what I try to do especially with the first draft. — Wally Lamb Copy Share
“As anxious and limited as that love might have been, it had been love nonetheless.” — Wally Lamb Copy Share
